Memorial set for Newtown gunman’s mother

A memorial service is planned in New Hampshire on Saturday for Nancy Lanza, whose son shot her to death in their Connecticut home in December before driving to Sandy Hook Elementary School and gunning down 20 students and six educators.

The service is set for the First Congregational Church in Kingston, where Lanza once lived. Police Chief Donald Briggs said only friends and family are invited.

A private funeral attended by about 25 people was held for her there on Dec. 20, less than a week after her son’s Dec. 14 rampage in Newtown, Conn. Adam Lanza killed himself as police closed in.

Those who knew Nancy Lanza have described her as a good, devoted mother. She and Adam’s father divorced several years ago.

The motive for her son’s killing spree is still unclear. Investigators have said mother and son visited shooting ranges together, and the victims killed at the school were all shot with a Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle that Adam Lanza took from the house he and his mother shared. That gun and the handgun he used to shoot himself had been legally purchased by his mother.

The massacre has revived the national gun control debate and led to proposals for universal background checks on gun buyers and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

The Newtown massacre was the second-worst school shooting in U.S. history after the 2007 Virginia Tech rampage, which left 33 people dead.

Adam Lanza’s father claimed his remains and a family spokesman said there were private arrangements, but the burial location was not made public.